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Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Friday, May 2
Visit http://www.democracynow.org to watch the entire independent, global news hour. This is a summary of news headlines from the U.S. and around the world on Friday, May 2, 2014. Visit the...
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Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Friday, May 2 - Video
Around the world, the advance of freedom hinges on "swing states." And they're swinging in the wrong direction.
Pictures of Egyptian army chief and presidential candidate Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who overthrew former Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi in 2013, on a computer screen. (Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters)
While the worlds attention has been riveted on Ukraine and what move an emboldened Vladimir Putin will make next, diverse threats to democracy have intensified on other fronts as well. The story is not new. According to Freedom House, 2013 was the eighth consecutive year in which more countries experienced declines in political rights or civil liberties than improvements. Since 2005, democracy has ceased its decades-long expansion, leveling off at about 60 percent of all independent states. And since the military coup in Pakistan in 1999, the rate of democratic breakdowns has accelerated, with about one in every five democracies failing.
The downfall of several Arab autocracies in 2011 seemed to augur a new burst of democratic progress, but that progress has not materialized. While Tunisia has emerged as the first Arab democracy in 40 years, Egypt is more repressive now than at any time in the last decade of Hosni Mubaraks rule. Since the end of 2010, more Arab countries have regressed in freedom and political pluralism than have advanced.
The democratic recession were witnessing has been particularly visible in big swing statesthe non-Western countries with the largest populations and economies. Since the late 1990s, democracy has broken down in Russia, Nigeria, Venezuela, the Philippines, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Thailand, and Kenya. The Philippines is the one relative bright spot in the group today, with a democratically elected president, Benigno Aquino, committed to serious governance reforms. Russia has become not just a venal and despotic state, but a neo-imperial menace to its neighbors as well. Nigeria has reverted back to tragic levels of political kleptocracy and fraud, feeding political polarization, ethnic resentment, citizen alienation, and an increasingly virulent Islamic terrorist movement in the north. The grip of Bolivarian socialism has weakened in Venezuela as governance has deteriorated, violence has exploded, and the opposition has unified behind a liberal challenger first to Hugo Chvez and then to his designated successor. But it will be a pyrrhic victory for democrats if the Chavista regime falls and social order collapses alongside it.
In January, democracy in Bangladesh suffered a major setback when the principal opposition party boycotted parliamentary elections after the ruling party abandoned neutral arrangements for electoral administration, and trust between the two parties collapsed. While Freedom House judges that democracy has returned to Pakistan, Kenya, and Thailand, these governments are so illiberal and corrupt that it is difficult to say what exactly they are.
In Thailand, enmity between the yellow shirt urban, middle-class backers of the monarchy and the red shirt partisans of populist former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has paralyzed the government and increasingly veered toward violence. Instability has been a chronic issue since the military ousted Thaksin in 2006, suspending the country indefinitely between resilient majority support for Thaksins party and the yellow-shirt camps continuing control of key levers of the deep state. Since November, more than 20 people have been killed and over 700 injured in fevered street confrontations between the two camps. And the worst may be yet to come. In January, one Red Shirt militant vowed, I want there to be lots of violence to put an end to all this. Its time to clean the country, to get rid of the elite, all of them. As in Nigeria, renewed military intervention wont solve the countrys problems. Yet if things continue to degenerate, the military is waiting in the wings.
During his 11 years in power, Turkeys domineering prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has managed to politically neutralize the military and the independent press, along with many other countervailing forces in politics and society. Those who hoped his authoritarian drift might be slowed by local elections in late March were severely disappointed, as his Justice and Development Party (AKP) won a convincing victory across Turkeys municipalities. Erdogans victory speech that night was anything but magnanimous. He threatened those who had exposed the mounting corruption of his government (and reportedly his own family), assured his supporters that we are the owners of this country, and portrayed his victory as a full Ottoman slap to all his opponents.
As Erdogan prepares to run either for prime minister or president (if he can amend the constitution to enhance the latters powers), Turkey is in deepening trouble. Journalists fear to report the truth, and with good reason; more of them are jailed in Turkey than in any other country. Businesses fear to support opposition parties, judges fear to rule against the ruler, and the AKPlong hailed in the West for its success in reconciling Islam and democracyis increasingly looking like an old-fashioned hegemon bent on securing its dominance. With every passing day, Turkey looks more like the fake democracy of Malaysia than any real democracy in Europe. Meanwhile, Malaysia failed to record the democratic breakthrough many expected in 2013. Even though the opposition, led by Anwar Ibrahim, won a clear majority of the vote in general elections, brazen gerrymandering and over-representation of ruling-party strongholds nullified the preference of most Malaysians.
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Democracy's Deepening Recession
Edtors Note: This is a selection from The Problem of Security: Historicity of the State and European Realism found in the collection The Myth of National Defense edited by Hans-Hermann Hoppe.
The constitutionalist claim to justify the States monopoly of violence has been challenged directly by the radical libertarian tradition (Molinari) and by individualist anarchists (such as Lysander Spooner). However, an important role in bringing the modern State into perspective has also been played by European political realism and, in particular, by Carl Schmitt and the Italian elitist scholars (Gaetano Mosca and Vilfredo Pareto).
Schmitts importance rests very much on his intuition that in every State there is first a political dimension and then a decision, which cannot be obscured by the so-called impersonality of law and the super-individuality of orders. Beyond the apparent abstraction of the State (as described by Hans Kelsen and other positivists), Schmitt uncovered choices, interests, and, in short, people that impose their will on others.[1]
The constitutional thought of classical and contemporary liberalism has constantly tried to neutralize politics, but it has failed. In Schmitts opinion, the real sovereign is the political group that has the final decision about the critical situation, in the state of emergency.[2] The locus of sovereignty thus becomes the political entity (which in our time is the State), and the decision on the state of emergency is the ultimate test of sovereignty. Legal positivism tried hard to refute the importance of this notion, but critical decision making is paramount in the development of human relations.
Therefore, the liberal neutralization of politics sought by classical constitutionalism is simply impossible. When the State every State is recognized as a structure of decisions and an instrument of domination wielded by some rulers, political modernity displays itself with no clothes and one can understand the illegitimacy, as well the irrationality, of the monopoly of protection. There is nothing neutral or innocent in the power of a group of men that Italian elitists called the ruling class.
Hobbes was wrong (as a philosopher) when he asserted that law comes from authority. However, we can agree with political scientists using Hobbesian theory that State decisions are the result of conflicts of interests and opposing views. In statist societies, where the law is controlled by a monopolistic institution, it is force that dictates law.
This is especially true in democratic countries, where social life is marked by the competition for the control of the political center, i.e., the power to distribute resources, favors, and privileges. Schmitts critique of the hypocrisy of liberal democracy is confirmed by the Italian elitists. The latter were convinced that in every political system there is a small group of men (an organized elite) dominating the large disorganized mass. As Pareto noted,
the corruption of the parliamentary system meant that the interests of the majority were seconded to the interests and passions of a small and highly organized group. These were ready to use any means to extend their influence and dominate the country.[3]
For this reason, democracy exists only as a political ideology devoted to protecting and legitimating the power of a minority capable of taking advantage of its higher organization.[4]
Bruno Leoni adopted political realism (and the lessons of the Italian elitists) in his critique of majoritarian democracy. In his opinion, eliminating all group decisions taken by aggressive coalitions,
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Democracy, War, and the Myth of the Neutral State
by Saiful Bahari, reporters@theborneopost.com. Posted on May 3, 2014, Saturday
KUCHING: The anti-GST rally that was held on Labour Day in Kuala Lumpur is proof the government still practises democracy despite the aggressive behaviours of several protesters during the event.
Deputy Home Minister Datuk Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said rally participants should understand that the police had taken considerable measures to ensure that no untoward incidents would happen during the event.
The Peaceful Assembly Act is a statement of freedom of speech to Malaysia, but organisers and participants must understand the rights of others and not just themselves, said Wan Junaidi, who was met after presenting a cheque to a school at SJK Chung Hua Sungai Buda in Bako yesterday.
He added that reports had shown that the rally caused massive traffic jams in the city centre and that, by itself, had defeated the spirit of a peaceful assembly.
On the incident involving a non-governmental organisation (NGO) and members of the press during the rally, Wan Junaidi said apparently some participants had taken matters into their own hands.
The public should understand that the media, including photographers, are entitled to their opinions and that is their right. Dissatisfaction towards a media entity due to biased reporting, for instance, should not happen as they have the right to report what they saw.
He, however, said he was glad no untoward incidents occurred during the event and urged members of the public to understand the real meaning behind democracy.
Earlier at the event, Wan Junaidi said during his first visit to the school in 2004, the school was in a dilapidated condition, but he was able to get RM500,000 for improvement works.
Meanwhile, SJK Chung Hua Sungai Buda new building committee chairperson Chai Chon Jong said the school was set up in 1932 and were in a bad shape.
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Democracy very much alive in Malaysia